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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

One way or another you're going to need a bootloader on the MBR unless you're going to be booting from CD. The MBR bootloader can chainload over to the slackware/lilo partition. I wouldn't have thought the absence of an MBR bootloader would have prevented the lilo root partition install - but maybe it does.

The system still complain "FATAL: no bootable media found". Did I do something wrong? What steps did I miss?

Did you buy this new computer with another OS pre-installed? I have found on occasion that just deleting existing partitions is sometimes not enough. I needed to wipe the disk several times on one occasion before all traces of the old OS disappeared (I used Acronis disk editor to check after every wipe). It wasn't until I did that that I could get a Linux OS booting. Still not sure if it was an infected MBR because it was so bloody resistant to removal.

One way or another you're going to need a bootloader on the MBR unless you're going to be booting from CD. The MBR bootloader can chainload over to the slackware/lilo partition. I wouldn't have thought the absence of an MBR bootloader would have prevented the lilo root partition install - but maybe it does.

DonnieP: Yes. I agree.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aocab

lilo is giving a warning about it assuming the
drive is using LBA32 addressing:
Warning: LBA32 addressing assumed
But the following does not appear to indicate LBA32 addressing:
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
For LBA32, wouldn't the settings be more like?:16 heads, 63 sectors/track, NNNNN cylinders
Check your bios to see if there is a setting
for hard disk bios translation. What is it set at?
On mine, I have three choices:
bit-shift, chs, and none.
I have to have mine set at none in
order to use LBA32 addressing.
HTH

aocab: My system doesn't have this option in BIOS. Mine is Dell Optiplex 960.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gezley

Did you buy this new computer with another OS pre-installed? I have found on occasion that just deleting existing partitions is sometimes not enough. I needed to wipe the disk several times on one occasion before all traces of the old OS disappeared (I used Acronis disk editor to check after every wipe). It wasn't until I did that that I could get a Linux OS booting. Still not sure if it was an infected MBR because it was so bloody resistant to removal.

gezley: This is a new system. It came with Vista. I reinstalled Slackware 13 and lilo several times today. It just didn't work.

All: I gave it up at this point. I installed LILO on MBR. Everything works well. It just struck me when I saw a warning message on LILO Installation screen. The warning says install LILO on MBR is a risk. That's why I tried to install LILO on the root partition.

As I mentioned, I always installed LILO on MBR.

I will test LILO Installation on the root partition using the VirtualBox. Will post an update if I make some progress.

This should explain it:
LILO can install itself in two places on your hard drive: the Partition boot sector -pbr, or the mbr of the hard drive.
It will not work on a separate partion like grub will. If it is the only OS it must be in mbr.

On bootup your Bios will chain to the mbr and run the bootstrap program(lilo or other) that will load your operating system.

I only have slackware 13 installed. There is no other boot loader on the MBR.

You need a bootloader on the 'MBR' for this to work. You can place a bootloader on the 'MBR' that can be chainloaded to other loaders on the respective superblock. A superblock is a segment of metadata describing the filesystem on a block device. This is one of the means that a user would utilize to have multiple OS on a machine.

lba32 Generate 32-bit Logical Block Addresses instead of cylinder/head/sector addresses. If the BIOS
supports packet addressing, then packet calls will be used to access the disk. This allows booting
from any partition on disks with more than 1024 cylinders. If the BIOS does not support packet
addressing, then 'lba32' addresses are translated to cylinder/head/sector ('geometric'), just as
for 'linear'. All floppy disk references are retained in C:H:S form. Use of 'lba32' is recom-
mended on all post-1998 systems. Beginning with LILO version 22, 'lba32' is the default disk
addressing scheme.

Place the option 'lba32' in the global section of your '/etc/lilo.conf' then re-run 'lilo' again.
Just a few links to aid you;

Did you buy this new computer with another OS pre-installed? I have found on occasion that just deleting existing partitions is sometimes not enough. I needed to wipe the disk several times on one occasion before all traces of the old OS disappeared (I used Acronis disk editor to check after every wipe). It wasn't until I did that that I could get a Linux OS booting. Still not sure if it was an infected MBR because it was so bloody resistant to removal.

Next time use the boot disk from the hard drive manufacturer and write zeroes to the drive (low level format). This will eliminate the need to do "several wipes".

Next time use the boot disk from the hard drive manufacturer and write zeroes to the drive (low level format). This will eliminate the need to do "several wipes".

Thank you for the advice. I was under the impression that's what my old bootable Privacy Expert CD was doing - zeroing the disk? On numerous occasions before and after this particular disk I was able to inspect disks using the built-in disk editor Acronis shipped with this software and see that they had been zeroed from start to finish. On just this one occasion I was stumped and quite surprised to find data surviving numerous attempts to wipe, repartition, reformat, and whatever else I threw at it!

I just mentioned it because I thought the original poster might not have zeroed his disk before installing Slackware, something that caused me a problem with just one disk out of hundreds.